Long Valley's Gibbon Went Through Life-Changing Journey as a Teen

Editor's Note: This article originally ran in 2011.

In just 22 years, life was quite a journey for Long Valley resident Adam Gibbon, who died on Jan. 6 from pneumonia.

Gibbon, who was just 13 years old when his mother Debra died in the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, was in December of 2010 after a car crash on Hacklebarney Road in 2007. Gibbon’s passenger Christopher Grieves died in the crash.

In between the tragic events, as Gibbon grew during his teen years, he began getting into trouble with older teens, according to his father Fred Gibbon.

“He was getting off on the wrong foot,” said Fred Gibbon. “The summer going into his (high school) junior year, he started hanging out with older kids, and doing things with them that he shouldn’t have.”

After a year of trying to discipline his son and keep him from trouble, Fred Gibbon admitted there was nothing more he could do, and that Adam needed to be taken out of his comfort zone.

“I found out about this group called Second Nature Wilderness,” Gibbon said. “I had to do something, and I thought I’d give this a shot.”

It was in the middle of the night during the fall of Adam’s senior year at , that men dressed in black clothing entered his bedroom, took him from his home and drove to Newark International Airport to put him on a plane headed west.

“It was right out of a movie,” Gibbon said. “You see these programs on TV, but you never know what really happens. It was exactly like that.”

Adam Gibbon boarded a flight for Salt Lake City, Utah, and became the newest teen to enter the Second Nature Therapeutic Wilderness program.

The program, according to Fred Gibbon, is to take teens out of their comfort zone. “It’s a program designed for teens who are misbehaving, defiant, etc.,” said Gibbon. “They need to be taken out of their world, and that’s what this program does.”

Adam Gibbon would spend the next three months outdoors on Native American soil, where he’d learn to take care of himself and get help from counselors trained in therapy.

“He had to learn how to make a fire and really take care of himself,” Gibbon said about the program. “Since it was on Indian grounds, all the kids and counselors needed to leave the land undisturbed, and leave everything in its wilderness structure.”

Adam Gibbon, along with his peers who were also enrolled in the program, would go on 10-mile hikes everyday, carrying 100 pounds of equipment on their backs. The teens had no watches, and learned to structure their days based on the location of the sun.

The area in which the teens are located is a three-hour drive from the program’s office in Duchesne, Utah. Counselors would come to the campsite once a week to speak with, evaluate and help each teen. If a program member was doing well and making improvements, he or she would be allowed to send and receive letters from home.

“[Adam] started adjusting and improving fairly quickly,” said Gibbon. “I could tell he was changing and doing better from his first letter. He began to learn what’s important in life. He learned that doing the things he was doing was only going to put him behind in the race of life.”

At the end of the three months, Gibbon flew out to Utah to bring his son back east, who had graduated from the program.

“It completely changed his personality,” Gibbon said. “He had a bigger view of the world. He even thought about being a counselor with Second Nature when he got older. That plane ride… it was some of the best conversations we ever had together.”

Adam Gibbon did not return to West Morris Central High School, but would go on to attain his New Jersey State Diploma within the next year.

The Gibbon family has created the Adam Gibbon Memorial Fund in which proceeds benefit the Second Nature Wilderness program. According to Fred Gibbon, it's exactly what Adam would have wanted.

After Adam’s death, donations came in such abundance, that the Second Nature Wilderness program decided to match Adam’s Memorial Fund dollar for dollar.

The program is currently seeking funds to help a male teen who is now in the program, and is making progress, but will still need further therapy once he leaves Second Nature. The teen’s mother, a single parent, cannot fund the extended therapy herself. Proceeds to the Adam Gibbon Memorial Fund will go directly to this adolescence’s ongoing therapy.

If you’d like to make a donation to the Adam Gibbon Memorial Fund, send it to:

Second Nature
The Adam Gibbon Memorial Fund
2711 Santa Clara Drive
Santa Clara, UT 84765

For more information on Second Nature Wilderness, visit the Web site at www.snwp.com.